WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/REG170/M/4 
1 May 2009 
 (09-2148) 
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements 
Fifty-third Session  
 
 
 
CONSIDERATION OF THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION  
TO 25 MEMBER STATES, SERVICES 
 
Note on the Meeting of 20 April 2009  
 
Chairman:  Mr D. Brauns (Germany) 
  1. The meeting was convened in document WTO/AIR/3332/Rev.1, dated 1 April 2009. 
2. Under Agenda Item C.III of its 53
rd Session, the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements 
(hereinafter CRTA or the Committee) considered th e Agreement on the Enlargement of the European 
Union (EU) to 25 Members States (services), (hereinafter the Agreement).  
3. The Chairman  said that the Agreement had entered into force on 1 May 2004 and had been 
notified by the Parties to the WTO on 26 August 2004 under GATS Article V:7(a) as an Agreement 
providing for the liberalization of trade in services within the meaning of Article V of the GATS 
(document S/C/N/303).  The text of the Agreement, together with its Annexes, was available on the 
Parties' official websites. 
4. The Factual Presentation on th e services aspects (documen t WT/REG170/8 da ted 16 December 
2008) had been prepared by the Secretariat on its own responsibility in full consultation with the Parties, 
in accordance with paragraph 7(b) of the Transparency Mechanism (TM) for Regional Trade 
Agreements (document WT/L/671).  In addition, wr itten questions and replies on this Agreement had 
been recently distributed in documen t WT/REG170/9 dated 24 March 2009.  He pr oposed to organize 
the consideration of the Agreement by first asking the Parties and then other Members for general comments.  The Committee would then turn to th e specifics of the Agreement using the Factual 
Presentation to guide the debate.  He proposed th at the Committee would go through the Factual 
Presentation section by section, and then look at the questions and replies document.  
5. The representative of the European Communities (EC)
 welcomed the CRTA’s consideration 
of the Agreement, hoping that this would serve to better understand the key features of the EC's 
enlargement in 2004.  He reaffirmed the EC's commitment to the rules-based multilateral trading 
system under the WTO, and expressed his delegation's support for strengthened WTO rules, disciplines and mechanisms on RTAs, in order to en hance their transparency and compliance with the 
WTO rules.  In this regard, he welcomed again the operation of the TM and encouraged WTO 
Members to participate actively and constructively.  The EC had worked closely with the Secretariat 
in preparing the Factual Presentation and had made an effort to meet all the established deadlines and therefore had contributed to the good functioning of the TM. 
6. He then introduced the Treaty of Accession w ith the ten new Member States – Cyprus, the 
Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithua nia, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and 
Slovenia.  The Agreement had entered into for ce on 1 May 2004 and had been notified to the WTO 
Council for Trade in Services under Article V:7(a) of the GATS in April 2004.  The Agreement set WT/REG170/M/4 
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  out the conditions of accession of the ten States to the EC, or in more legal terms, to the EC Treaty.  
Liberalization of trade in services was mainly stip ulated in Annex II of the Agreement and in the 
individual Member State Annexes containing the specific commitments or reservations of each Member State.  The enlargement of the EC to 25 Member States had resulted in significant changes.  The EC's population had been enlarged by clo se to 20%, from 385 to 475 million, its land area by 
25% and its GDP by 5%.  In terms of trade in ser vices, the 2004 enlargement had confirmed the EC's 
position as the world's leading services trader.  Also, the EC remained the world's biggest recipient 
and supplier of foreign direct investment.  Con cerning the bilateral trading relations between the 
original 15 Member States and each of the ten new Member States, the latter had become subject to the EC's acquis communautaire .  As the level of services liberalization based on the earlier Europe or 
Association Agreements had been much lower, new market access opportunities had arisen for the 
services sectors, affecting all companies based in the EC25 territory or in third countries.  More particularly, the Agreement extended the EC's inte rnal freedom to establish and to supply services in 
all sectors of activity unless otherwise specified.  Ac cordingly, the full range of services sectors and 
all modes of supply were liberalized with some li mited exceptions.  From his delegation's point of 
view, the Agreement fully met WTO requirements, incl uding particularly those under Article V of the 
GATS.  He believed that pursuant to the terms of  the GATS, the Agreement had complete sectoral 
coverage and provided for the elimin ation of all discrimination.   
7. Furthermore, he noted that the GATS commitments  of the ten Member States and those of the 
EC15 had been modified in accordance with GATS Ar ticle XXI procedures launched by the EC at the 
time of notifying its enlargement, with a view to  consolidating the commitments of all 25 Member 
States into one schedule.  These modifications had concerned not only the ten Member States but also 
the three Member States (Austria, Finland and Swed en) that had acceded to the EC in its previous 
enlargement of 1995.  Following the agreement on compensatory adjustment with 17 WTO Members, 
the EC had completed the certification procedure in  accordance with the relevant provisions of WTO 
law.  As set out in the relevant agreements conc luded with the 17 WTO Members, the consolidated 
EC25 schedule was due to enter into force on a date  to be specified by the EC following completion 
of its internal approval procedures.  He reminde d the Committee that in 2007, the EU's membership 
had been extended to 27 Members States, adding Bulg aria and Romania.  The consideration process 
of this latest enlargement had already started, a nd the EC would come back to the CRTA shortly to 
present it.  He thanked Members for their interest and questions to which the EC had provided replies 
in writing, including those submitted after the established deadline. 
8. The representative of the United States
 thanked the EC and the Secretariat for the information 
provided on the Agreement.  She noted that the delay in entry into force of the consolidated schedule 
had created considerable uncertainty on the status  of the new EC Member States' GATS commitments 
and the implementation of the negotiated adjustments to the EC's GATS commitments.  Therefore, her delegation urged the EC to accelerate its internal procedures to achieve an early entry into force of 
the consolidated schedule.  The representative of the EC
 agreed to follow up on the process of 
ratification and to update interested  Members about future progress.   
9. The representative of Colombia  associated herself with the United States on the issue of the 
consolidated schedule.  She understood that the European Commission had taken some measures to 
ratify the consolidated schedule and that on the 10th February 2009 there had been hearing before the 
European Court of Justice (ECJ) where clarifica tions on how to proceed with the issue had been 
requested.  She asked the EC about the outcome of this procedure and of the adoption of any decision 
by the ECJ on the matter.  In the case that an  immediate response was not foreseen, she asked the 
EC whether it considered it appropriate to take additional steps to move the process forward.  The 
representative of the EC  explained that the process before the ECJ was still at the beginning; 
consequently, it was too early to provide a clear indi cation on when an outcome could be expected as 
the process could take several months.  WT/REG170/M/4 
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  10. The Chairman  noted that the consideration of the services aspects of the Enlargement of the 
European Union to 25 Member States had allowe d the Committee to clarify a number of questions 
and oral discussion of the Agreement could be concl uded in accordance with paragraph 11 of the TM.  
If any delegations wished to ask follow-up questions  they were invited to forward submissions in 
writing  to the Secretariat by 27 April 2009 a nd the Parties were asked to submit replies  in writing by 
no later than 4 May 2009.  In accordance with para graph 13 of the TM all written submissions, as well 
as the minutes of the meeting would be circulated promptly, in all WTO official languages, and would 
be made available on the WTO website. 
11. The Committee took note  of the comments made. 
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